No Earthly Way of Knowing
by sbgrrl
Summary: 5.07 tag. Again with the pre-slash. Danny thought he'd lost Steve to Wo Fat, and now that he had him ... he wasn't letting go, no matter what.


Danny didn't believe in resurrection. On the very long list of philosophies he thought existed only to make people feel better about their own mortality, that one was way near the bottom as far as credibility went, right next to reincarnation. Still, as he sat there listening while Steve's restless sleep revealed the things locked away behind a tough façade during waking hours, he wanted Wo Fat revivified so he could put a bullet in that son of a bitch's brain himself. He wanted to do that again and again, and if that made him a horrible human being, then so be it. He could live with that. He already lived with so much worse.

"Shh," Danny said. He tightened his grip on Steve's hand. Aside from when they'd taken Steve back in the emergency department, he hadn't let go of his partner. He couldn't seem to, needed Steve to have contact with someone real, solid. "It's okay now, Steve. You're all right."

Steve was so far from all right Danny was sure if this were a fairy tale his nose would grow several instantaneous inches at the outright lie. Shit, he might _want_ it to be a fantastical story rather than actual life, gigantic nose and all. That would be a helluva lot simpler, and destined to include a happy ending. He rubbed his thumb along the back of Steve's hand, one of the only areas guaranteed to not trigger bad things right now, and willed the heart monitor to resume a more regular beat. His own heart tripped as the memory of finding Steve lying there on the floor, unmoving and, from a distance, seemingly unbreathing. He'd thought … Jesus, he'd thought he'd lost another person he loved and it was too soon for that kind of pain again. Selfish of him to put that kind of spin on it, he knew. Yet that gnawing feeling of dread was there even now, wouldn't dissipate despite the fact Steve was there, warm and alive, under his touch.

"Sleep." Danny kept his voice firm but soft, a well-practiced tone. "You're safe, just sleep."

Somehow or another, it worked. Danny wasn't sure why, but the only thing that seemed to keep Steve halfway calm was him. He didn't want to think about it too much, try to open doors that were padlocked from the inside, and was simply grateful he could at least be of some help. That was why he wasn't about to leave Steve's bedside. Earlier, he'd been asked to adhere to visiting hours, a perfectly reasonable request, but he'd barely made it into the hall when Steve had become agitated. Without being able to give him much by way of sedation due to the massive amounts of hallucinogens and various other drugs Danny didn't know or want to know how to pronounce that were in Steve's system, the attending physician had ordered restraints.

As if the fucking chafe marks from having been strapped to a chair and waterboarded within an inch of his life weren't readily apparent on Steve's wrists and ankles, the wheeze of his breathing.

Danny wasn't Steve's proxy, medical or otherwise, but he'd fought and fought hard against that and won by sheer virtue that him bursting back into Steve's room shouting had lessened Steve's distress rapidly and noticeably. By that token alone, he had become the best medicine as far as he – and the doctors – were concerned. It was as tough a job as it was an important one, though. He was exhausted and emotionally drained, but all the same, he would not leave. His place was here at Steve's side. If he'd been by Steve's side this morning, he thought bitterly, maybe none of it would have happened. Realistically, he knew if that were the case he'd be dead, and maybe Steve would be too.

But that didn't keep him from feeling guilty as hell, for not being there to keep this from happening to Steve and for taking so long he'd almost been too late. Strictly speaking, they _had_ been too late tracking down Wo Fat's last Honolulu stronghold. Steve had saved himself before they'd found him. Danny lifted his free hand and brushed it gently along the bandage hiding the evidence of how close he … they had come to losing this ridiculous, amazing person.

"Dad," Steve moaned.

Danny gritted his teeth at Steve's continued suffering. Yes, he had borne witness to Steve's anguish as his brain continued to misfire and sent him on too many trips, drug induced at first and now primarily the fever that wracked his weakened body. Most of those trips were thankfully brief flashes and with each passing one his desire to bring Wo Fat back to kill him far in a far less kind fashion than Steve had done grew. Listening to his tough-as-nails partner call for his dead father, he was envisioning ripping of every finger and toenail first, then hacking Wo Fat into bits starting with each knuckle and moving up. He was painfully aware of how that kind of retribution would put him on level if not in ahead of Wo Fat on the scale of evil, but hey, it hadn't been that long ago he'd looked another sadistic bastard in the eye before ventilating the back of his head, so… Jesus, there was something wrong with him. Sitting here at his tortured friend's bedside, making it all about himself. Danny hadn't eaten in hours, but his stomach roiled.

"I'm sorry, Steve," Danny whispered. He wished like hell he could do more than he was doing. He wished he could get out of his own head long enough to do better at the limited help he could muster. "I am so sorry."

Steve let out a sound that should never come out of any human being, but out of him in particular it was chilling to hear. That momentary breakdown in front of everyone back in that awful room, quickly contained, had been but a tiny glimpse of what lay beneath that hard surface Steve had created. Apparently, calm wasn't the only benefit Danny brought to Steve. He should feel honored, really, that Steve could let out the deepest of his sorrows in his presence. In a way, he did. It also broke his heart into tiny pieces.

He sandwiched Steve's hands between his and held on through this latest wave, wondered how much more either of them were supposed to take. Danny squared his weary shoulders and bolstered himself for both of them, because right now Steve couldn't.

H50H50H50

Toast. Danny had no real idea what someone who'd been tortured and almost killed needed to eat. If there was any prescribed diet, no one at the hospital had made him aware of it. Never mind that there was no reason they would; as far as they knew, Steve had been released to his own recognizance. Nope. Not so and also not happening. Danny might have ended what he'd come to think of as his duty when his partner was deemed healthy enough to go home, but Steve had been – was – far too quiet for his liking. Not to mention Steve's face was still bruised by physical and mental assault both. He knew better than most that a person didn't just bounce back like nothing had happened in the face of such horror, and the very idea of leaving Steve on his own to handle the lingering symptoms of his kidnapping and torture was abhorrent to him.

It was a "do as I say, not as I do" moment.

Danny _had_ learned from his own too-recent mistake. He still had several of Steve's messages saved on his phone, kept them as strange reminders of what he had rather than what he'd lost. It was sentimental and unnecessary to do considering he had Steve in the flesh every day, but he couldn't bring himself to delete those supportive words received when he hadn't been able to accept them. Of the many people in his life, Steve was the only one who truly understood what he'd gone through. He wasn't too shocked to realize that applied with much broader strokes as well. He counted Steve as one of a select few who actually understood _him_, a rare feat for anyone outside of family, and they'd been in each other's pockets since day one.

The smell of charred bread let him know his mind had wandered too far for too long. Yeah, anyway, what he did know is that the diet someone who'd survived what Steve had should consist of more than liquor, beer or liquor and beer, though he couldn't really blame Steve for trying. All that particular diet resulted in were hangovers and painful, resurging heartache. Again, his own too-recent mistake told him that. So, he was fixing toast and applesauce and was aware how the food his mother would make him after a bout of flu wasn't really the cure-all he remembered. Toast wasn't going to fix Steve, who managed to appear normal in front of the others but even more normal (broken) in front of Danny. Even with him the guard was going back up.

The return to normal was probably a good thing, but then again … then again maybe the potent mix of non-regulated drugs wouldn't have had such a devastating impact if Steve were more open about his feelings. Maybe if Steve didn't feel like he had to hide his hurt behind a mask, he wouldn't break so spectacularly. Maybe it was time for Steve to realize he wasn't as alone as he thought. Maybe Danny had no real clue what to do here and was grasping at straws, primarily to make himself feel better.

He absently pulled the toast out, totally burned now, and began slathering it with butter – a contraindication for recovering from an upset stomach, but perfect in aiding and abetting comfort food. Maybe he'd get lucky and Steve was a dark toast kind of guy, though it was more likely it would go uneaten no matter how done it was. Steve wasn't big on eating much of anything yet, something about unforeseen side effects from the massive doses of chemicals pumped into him. Danny frowned. A dash of cinnamon sugar and the mid-afternoon snack was ready, whether it would get eaten or not. He glanced at the tray he'd gotten ready and shook his head. Toast and applesauce, what was he thinking?

He ended up thinking was that it really was a moot issue because as he stepped onto the _lanai_ where Steve had been sitting, Danny saw right away that his partner was sleeping again. There was still a whole lot of sleeping going on, all the more fuel to the concern fire. He wasn't privy to every moment, but he was pretty sure the hallucinatory dreams Steve had a few days ago were now just run-of-the-mill odd dreams. He'd witnessed some ugly, some bad and some he might describe as interesting in that they seemed to involve him heavily. He'd already known the food was a stupid idea anyway. He snagged a piece of the toast himself, absently munched on it and stared down at his partner.

It was eighty-some degrees at the moment, but somehow Steve looked cold to him. Danny set the tray of ridiculous food on the small side table, retreated into the house to retrieve a blanket. He had a vague idea that he was barreling right into epic, embarrassing levels of mother-henning. First with the childhood comfort food, now with tucking a damn blanket around a grown man, in a tropical climate. He had a scattered thought as he went ahead and draped the unneeded blanket over his partner, that he was smothering Steve with the treatment he wanted himself but had been unable to take.

He supposed it made him a shit of a friend if hovering over Steve made him feel better himself, and that it was at least part of why he was doing it. It was mostly about Steve, but then he'd discovered that when it was about Steve, it was invariably about him too. He felt like their lives and problems had become intertwined. Danny had suspected as much for a while, but then … Matty, and now this. It could be that his own exhaustion and threadbare emotions were making him especially maudlin.

Danny kept staring at his partner, bothered that even in sleep Steve didn't look peaceful. He'd get there, and Danny fully intended to help. He leaned to straighten the blanket over Steve's shoulders. It was an ordinary move, nothing aggressive, but the next thing he knew, the world shifted. He was upright and then all of a sudden he was flat on his back with a six foot Navy SEAL on top of him. Before his brain could catch up with the alarming change in circumstance, there was a large hand around his throat.

"Steve," he said.

Wherever Steve was, it wasn't on his _lanai_ and it wasn't Danny he was seeing. His eyes were open, but even as Danny's vision started to gray he could tell there wasn't any recognition on his partner's face. Had he expected it, he might have been able to evade the maneuver long enough to try to reach Steve before he was being choked to death.

"Steve."

Danny should fight back. In any other situation, he would. He didn't have any kind of leverage and in any case, if this was some hallucination, then given Steve's harried past the guy probably expected a fight and it would only spur him on. The blank but somehow also wild look in his eyes was of a man struggling for his life. All Danny could do was hope Steve broke out of it before something unrecoverable happened. He got a hand up, not to push Steve's face away but to cup it as gently as he could. He didn't want to die here, but if he did he wanted Steve know it wasn't his fault.

"Babe," Danny managed to choke out.

As suddenly as Steve had become trapped in his own mind, he snapped out of it. Danny's airway opened and he instinctively heaved in breaths. Spots danced in front of him, but he watched Steve lift his hands and hold them in front of him, horror on his face. Danny didn't have a chance to utter a word, could only watch, gasping for life, as Steve bolted for the house.

H50H50H50

"Just go, Danny," Steve said.

Those were the first words spoken directly to him by his partner in at least a day and even if it wasn't a positive endorsement, Danny counted it as progress. He shook his head at the request, though. Anyone who knew him knew he was a man of conviction. When he got his mind set on something, he stuck with it whether it took him down a negative path or a positive one. In this case, he was sure there was a positive outcome to be had. The problem he was having was Steve and the giant wall he'd put back in place. Despite his partner's best efforts to avoid him, he wasn't going to go away so easily. No one could out-stubborn a determined Williams.

"Nope, I don't think so," Danny said lightly.

"Please." Steve glanced in his direction, if not at him. His gaze was maybe neck level. "Jesus, Danny, _please_."

Unconsciously, Danny's hand lifted and his fingertips traced along the residual traces of bruising he knew was still visible around his throat. All he had to do was close his eyes and he could see the horrified look on Steve's face moments after he came back to himself. His eyes didn't have to be closed to see the ghost of that same expression; Steve wore it anytime they were near each other. He wore it right now, vaguely sick and haunted. That was the big problem for Danny, see. If he left Steve to his own devices while shouldering guilt that wasn't his to bear, that face would never fully go away. And Danny was a selfish individual; he could not live with that.

Steve made a strangled sound. It prompted Danny to look up sharply just in time to see the paleness of his partner's face and then a set of stiff shoulders as Steve pivoted and left the room for anywhere Danny wasn't. Danny hadn't meant to bring it all back up – every time Steve looked at him, he must be far too conscious of the bruises already – but Steve fleeing was merely a page in a very long book. They hadn't talked about it. At all. In the throes of some kind of flashback, Steve had nearly choked him to death and yet Danny hadn't been able to properly frame that necessary conversation. Part of it was Steve finding his way out of every room Danny entered within seconds and another part of it was … he didn't know. He wasn't sure. He had to be careful, with Steve's emotions and with his own. He hadn't fully understood the depths of Steve's pain. He still didn't.

"Steve, stop."

Steve ignored him.

Danny was more attuned to Steve than almost any other human being on the planet. He'd known on some level the amount of shit that had been handed to his partner over the years, yet coming face to face with it in such a visceral way had stunned him. The idea of that much trauma inflicted on anyone was bad. But this was _Steve_. If anything, Steve trying to kill him had made him more determined to see the guy through this. The whole purpose of him sticking by Steve so close was to keep this from happening and he was doing a shit job so far. All they seemed to be doing was reenacting what had gone down after Matty, with roles reversed. Well, he knew what a dark, miserable place his head was now and compared to Steve, his suffering was nothing. No. They were going to get past this. The way he reasoned it, in the past Steve always licked his wounds alone. All evidence pointed to that being a spectacular failure.

And Danny loved Steve too much to let history keep repeating.

He was embarrassed how surprised he was to realize his love ran as deeply as it did, and in which direction. In his case, it was definitely that actions spoke louder than his brain had been willing to admit. All he had to do was re-examine his motivations. He would help any of the team through something like Steve survived, yet not in the same way. Not with his whole damned heart, and not with his own recovery so tangled up in it. He was fond of Lou. He adored Chin and Kono. He loved Steve. He didn't even care if there was no hope of reciprocation for … whatever it was he had going on. He mutely watched Steve walk away from him for half a second, and no. No. He had to take this out of his head and into reality. Danny set his shoulders and moved fast to catch up with Steve.

"Wait, wait, wait," Danny said, latching a hand on Steve's elbow. "Steve, hold up a minute."

The number of expressions Danny never wanted to see on Steve's face again was growing exponentially. Jesus, the way Steve was looking at him was something he'd never expected to see turned in his direction. Terror. Steve looked terrified. For a sick second, Danny thought he'd moved too fast, provoked some awful memory and tipped his partner into PTSD again. He tried not to flinch, and quickly realized that Steve was terrified for him rather than of him. He kept his hand on Steve's arm, the muscles beneath his fingertips tense. It was the first time he'd had any direct contact with Steve for a long while. He thought maybe it had started to go south when he'd backed off his initial hands-on approach. Steve had responded well to touch before. Danny took the fact that Steve didn't wrench free as a sign, loosened his grip but he wasn't going to let go again.

"Hey, I'm fine," he said, frowning at Steve's headshake. "I'm _fine_ and it wasn't your fault in any way."

"Danny," Steve said, his voice choked like his throat was closing up. "It was. I can't, I can't..."

Steve tried to pull away. Danny didn't let him. Suffering through their miseries alone had never worked. He'd found some form of peace here, with Steve, and he wanted for Steve to get some of the same.

"You can't what?"

Steve stumbled a few steps, found the nearest wall to sag against. Danny went with him step for step. He wouldn't ever get used to seeing Steve so fragile, and while this was far and away better than he'd been, it wasn't enough. He wanted all of Steve's ghosts banished. At the very least, he wanted to know what they were in order to best help.

"I don't want to hurt anyone," Steve said. He pursed his lips as if reconsidering, then followed with, "I don't want to hurt _you_."

Danny's first thought was to refute that as a possibility. That would be stupid, though, what with the bruises he sported. Steve wouldn't knowingly hurt any of them, but it could still happen. He shook his head.

"I'm not hurt." He lifted a hand to quell the protest. "I'm not hurt, not really, and I'm not going away. You don't have to do this alone. Trust me, okay. I know it feels like this unbearable weight. You might think you can carry it if you just stuff it all into a little dark ball, but why would you want to if you knew there was someone to help lessen the load?"

"Danny, you don't know…"

"I don't care if you don't think I can handle it. I can. Don't do what I did, Steve," Danny said, emotions barely in check.

That small, dark ball he'd formed himself was cracking, and maybe it wasn't such a bad thing. He had stared out across the Atlantic for hours, trying to find comfort in the cold, harsh waves when he should have been here, where the waves were warm and Steve, Steve.

"Just don't."

Steve's eyes were wide in his pale face. For several moments, there was silence broken only by the sound of the ocean and their rough, emotion-laden breathing.

"He kept saying we were brothers. Even at the very end," Steve said dully at last. "_You're not going to kill me. Are you, brother?_ After he'd spent hours torturing me for information I didn't have. Years."

"That fucking bastard." Danny's hand tightened around Steve's elbow, and his partner leaned into it.

"And I thought about you and Matt, how you did anything and everything for him, not to him." Steve let out a funny laugh and gave Danny a sorrowful headshake. The laugh quickly turned into that desperate near-cry that made Danny again wish he had magical powers. "How my dad did anything for us, but my mom, she did it more to us."

Danny's eyes were hot with tears. He knew there was nothing he could say, could he manage to speak past the lump in his throat. He would have moved the heavens and earth before harming a hair on Matty's head, yet him doing just that indirectly caused his brother's death. His own emotions had been too close to the surface for a solid month, and he was about as close to losing it as Steve. So he said noting and pulled Steve into a fierce hug. He put his whole being into it, reinforced his intent to stay right there with Steve every step of the way.

At first, Steve stayed locked into his own hurt. Danny felt the moment his partner caved, then melted into the hug a fraction of a second later, his body shaking. They stood there, wrapped in each other physically as they always had been virtually.

"I'd do anything for you," Danny murmured. He paused to let that sink in. "I love you, Steven."

Steve squeezed him tighter, muffled his escaping emotions on Danny's shoulder. It was a heady feeling, Steve's embrace. It always had been. Danny could stay that way forever, take what he could get and make it enough. He had no earthly way of knowing where they'd end up, if Steve would ever know how much he was loved, but he was sure they'd get there together.

For the moment, that was plenty.


End file.
